Burson-Marsteller's BKSH & Assocs. has signed on as the Washington representative for Kosmos Energy, the Dallas-based firm formed in '03 to drill for oil along the coast of west Africa.

KE is backed by a $300 million investment by Wall Street players Warburg Pincus and Blackstone Partners. The region holds 14 billion barrels of oil, and "sizeable fields" of up to 780M barrels, according to KE.

The corporate strategy is to establish ventures with countries from Morocco to South Africa that have oil fields of at least 500M barrels.

In July, KE inked a deal with Ghana to explore the country's Tano Basin. The Ghana National Petroleum Corp. holds a 10 percent stake in that venture.

KE is staffed with experienced energy industry veterans, including Jim Musselman, who had headed Triton Energy.

Other key executives include Brian Maxted (formerly senior VP-global exploration and new ventures at Amerada Hess), Greg Dunlevy (ex-CEO at Moncrief Oil International), Craig Glick (ex-senior VP at Hunt Oil) and Doug Manner (ex-COO at Gulf Canada Resources).